Last Saturday, Andrew Butchart, ran the fastest parkrun of all-time clocking 13:45. Edinburgh parkrun, where he ran, describes itself as a course designed to be enjoyable, rather than for pure ‘PB’ speed!! It’s scenic, flat and run on generally wide footpaths along the promenade on the Firth of Forth. On a tough day, it’s exposed, windy and cold and looking at the photos it’s not hard to imagine how bleak it could be in the depths of winter.
Fortunately Butchart turned up at the height of summer with good running conditions. Putting his time into perspective, if you’re a 23min parkrunner you’re just reaching the 3K point of your parkrun and for those running 27-28mins you’re halfway round. Even a 17 minute parkrunners is still a kilometre behind as Butchart finishes. Running at 2:45/km or 4:26/mile is fast and most of us wouldn’t even beat him off the start line which shouldn’t surprise anyone given he has competed at the Olympics.
The previous world record of 13:48 was set by Andrew Baddeley at Bushy Park in August 2012 – the week after competing in the Olympic 1,500 metres. That broke Australian Craig Mottram’s record of 14:00 which had stood since 2006.
The progression of the parkrun world record was fairly easy to track down because when Mottram set the record, Bushy Park was the only parkrun. In setting the world record in Edinburgh, Butchart becomes the first man to do so away from Bushy and the 10th to hold it.
I went back through the results and, of course, the record was initially set at the first event by Chris Owens at 18:47. Over the next year it was broken seven more times until Mottram smashed 39 seconds off to record exactly fourteen minutes in June 2006. Mottram was a world class 5,000m runner who took silver that same year at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games having won a bronze at the World Championships the year before.
In the early days at Bushy Park, where it all started, attendances were often less than 100 people and in setting the world record Mottram only finished ahead of 158 other runners. It wasn’t even a parkrun then – it was Bushy Park Time Trial. It typically attracted club runners whereas these days the bulk of 1,000+ runners turning up won’t be attached to a club. If you pick a random week from the early days you’ll find barely anyone taking longer than thirty minutes and an average time closer to twenty-three minutes. In some ways it was more competitive, especially as First Finishers were still referred to as Winners.
Among those humble beginnings we can find illustrious names such as Mo Farah logging a 15:06 in November 2005, Ireland’s World Champion Sonia O’Sullivan winning regularly as well as reducing the women’s world record twice (16:38 and 16:22). I’ve read there was a contingent of Kenyan internationals who lived near Bushy Park which included Bernard Kiptum (15:04 parkrun WR), Collins Kosgei, Johnson Kiptanui, Simon Arusei, Dennis Ndiso, and another World and Olympic champion in Vivian Cheruyiot – who held the women’s world record briefly at 17:52.
One little quirk of the early records is when David Symons set it at 16:39 in the 3rd ever parkrun event, the women’s world record was also set at 19:57 by Kate Symons. I assume they are married but may just be related.
| Date | Runner | Time | Parkrun location |
| 02-Oct-04 | Chris OWENS | 18:47 | Bushy Park, London |
| 16-Oct-04 | David SYMONS | 16:39 | Bushy Park, London |
| 06-Nov-04 | David SYMONS | 16:29 | Bushy Park, London |
| 27-Nov-04 | Kevin QUINN | 16:10 | Bushy Park, London |
| 05-Mar-05 | Dermot CUMMINS | 15:54 | Bushy Park, London |
| 14-May-05 | Bernard KIPTUM | 15:04 | Bushy Park, London |
| 17-Sep-05 | Phil SLY | 14:54 | Bushy Park, London |
| 01-Oct-05 | Noel POLLOCK | 14:39 | Bushy Park, London |
| 10-Jun-06 | Craig MOTTRAM | 14:00 | Bushy Park, London |
| 11-Aug-12 | Andrew BADDELEY | 13:48 | Bushy Park, London |
| 24-Jun-23 | Andrew BUTCHART | 13:45 | Edinburgh, Scotland |
The women’s world record progression is not so easily identified as while it was broken multiple times in the early years, once parkrun began to expand outside of London there was potential for it to be broken elsewhere. I recall Justina Heslop becoming the first woman to run sub-16 in late 2011 and as best as I can find it had always been set at Bushy Park until Hannah Walker recorded 15:55 at St Albans parkrun in July 2013. She has had the longest reign as it was 5½ years before Charlotte Arter took five seconds off at Cardiff in January 2019. She then broke her own record a year later by one second (15:49) just before the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Seasoned parkrunners will remember that events were cancelled due to COVID-19 and, when it came to reopening them, they restarted at different times around the world. Australia was one of the first countries to resume and the women’s parkrun world record went down in early 2021 as Lauren Reid ran 15:45 at Paramatta near Sydney followed seven months later by Caitlan Adams’ 15:38 at Lochiel parkrun near Adelaide.
It was quiet for a year until December 2022 produced a flurry of activity. Firstly Samantha Harrison, who finished sixth in the 2022 Commonwealth Games 10,000m final, reduced the world record to 15:37. She was only to hold on to it for three weeks as Melissa Courtney-Bryant ran 15:31 at my local parkrun in Poole on Christmas Eve. Sadly I missed this historic moment but I know it created tremendous excitement to have had a world record set there. Any week I run there I now know I have no excuses about the course.
Yet records are set to be broken and while Melissa is still the UK record holder, the women’s WR almost immediately returned to Australia. A week later on New Year’s Eve, Isobel Batt-Doyle recorded 15:25 at Aldinga Beach near Adelaide. It was the 3rd time in a month it had been broken and she became the 14th woman to hold it.
| Date | Runner | Time | Parkrun location |
| 02-Oct-04 | Rachel ROWAN | 21:01 | Bushy Park, London |
| 16-Oct-04 | Kate SYMONS | 19:57 | Bushy Park, London |
| 11-Dec-04 | Vivian CHERUIYOT | 17:52 | Bushy Park, London |
| 28-May-05 | Sonia O’SULLIVAN | 16:38 | Bushy Park, London |
| 18-Jun-05 | Sonia O’SULLIVAN | 16:22 | Bushy Park, London |
| 03-Jan-09 | Katrina WOOTTON | 16:20 | Bushy Park, London |
| 08-May-10 | Gladys CHEMWENO | 16:11 | Bushy Park, London |
| 24-Nov-11 | Justina HESLOP | 15:58 | Bushy Park, London |
| 27-Jul-13 | Hannah WALKER | 15:55 | St Albans, Hertfordshire |
| 05-Jan-19 | Charlotte ARTER | 15:50 | Cardiff |
| 01-Feb-20 | Charlotte ARTER | 15:49 | Cardiff |
| 23-Jan-21 | Lauren REID | 15:45 | Paramatta, Sydney, Australia |
| 07-Aug-21 | Caitlan ADAMS | 15:38 | Lochiel, Adelaide, Australia |
| 03-Dec-22 | Samantha HARRISON | 15:37 | Long Eaton, Derbyshire |
| 24-Dec-22 | Melissa COURTNEY-BRYANT | 15:31 | Poole, Dorset |
| 31-Dec-22 | Isobel BATT-DOYLE | 15:25 | Aldinga Beach, Adelaide, Australia |
| 23-Dec-23 | Ciara Mageean | 15:13 | Victoria Park, Belfast |
Update: In December 2023 Ciara Mageean took another 12 seconds off the women’s world record running in Northern Ireland. It’s the last record we will officially know about as in February 2024, parkrun decided it was no longer going to keep track of male/female/age-group records on its website. With over 2,000 parkruns worldwide it’s an impossible manual task to keep track of them all – we will have to see if updates continue to filter through.
Big Red Running 